Chapter 1392: The Gremlin Wakes Up

Since returning to Hell’s Paradise Island, Phei had somehow managed to do almost everything except properly check on the tiny menace who had occupied a permanent corner of his life for sometime now.

Eira had woken several hours ago, and Phei knew the exact moment when it had stirred inside his soul, that familiar little presence rising from the deep restorative sleep she had fallen into after Anarctica.

Her waking up happened well before he ended up inside the Goddess, and even through everything happening around him after, Phei had felt Eira wake as clearly but he simply had not made any conscious effort to go check on her.

’Which admittedly sounds considerably worse when phrased that way.’

In his defense, the past several hours had involved returning from what had personally been almost a year inside a primordial frozen hell, discovering how much everyone had changed, seeing Melissa’s growing belly, meeting half the household again, reuniting rather enthusiastically with the Goddess, checking on Consort, discovering an Undead Queen had apparently decided shameless flirting was now a legitimate branch of Necromancy, gifting said Queen seven Beastkin bodies and preparing to go hunting something most people would consider absolutely unhuntable—

—Yes Phei had been busy, and if he was completely truthful, there had also been several conversations he preferred navigating without Eira sitting on his shoulder providing live commentary like a tiny ancient sports announcer whose only team was his humiliation.

He had missed her deeply, but that did not mean he missed being roasted every eight seconds.

Besides, Eira could leave the Void Pocket whenever she wanted as she could command it the way he did and the hollow pocket was safe for her slumber because it was safe there than outside; if she wanted out, she could have gotten herself out, yet for some reason she simply had not.

Phei leaned farther back into the lounge couch and considered the matter before arriving at what he regarded as an entirely reasonable explanation.

’Maybe she is still doing the sit?’

Everyone did the sit after waking, you know that strange little period when a person opened their eyes, sat on the edge of the bed and stared at absolutely nothing while their soul negotiated the regrettable fact that consciousness had resumed.

Sometimes it lasted ten seconds, sometimes several minutes, and there were mornings when Phei had personally sat there long enough to reconsider civilization; well before his life took this drastic turn where he work up eagerly to enjoy the fruits of life or had to delay leaving bed because he has a lady to satisfy. You know.

Anyway enough rambling, Eira had slept for weeks, so logically her sit could require several hours.

’Mathematically sound. Probably.’

Although technically Eira’s restorative sleep had lasted weeks only from Earth’s perspective, Phei had personally experienced almost a year since leaving her behind because Sienna had taken him so abruptly that he never brought Eira’s Void Pocket with him.

The hollow remained exactly where he created it; inside his bedroom and anchored there while Phei vanished into the Primordial Frozen Zone, and the same thing had happened with the pocket containing the dead Wolf Beastkins.

He had left that one behind inside the enormous hall where his first body tempering occurred, and it stayed there until he later called it back and opened it for the Undead Queen.

That was one of the useful qualities of his Void Pockets, and depending on circumstance, but it could also be one of their limitations:

They did not automatically follow him!

Phei could create a hollow within the Void, anchor it to a location and leave it there indefinitely, but unless he deliberately drew that pocket along with himself or relocated its, it remained anchored with wherever he left it. Had Eira’s pocket travelled with him into the Primordial Frozen Zone, the difference in time probably would have meant she finished her restorative slumber in a few weeks in the primordial frozen hellish place.

Instead, her weeks remained weeks, while Phei lived almost an entire year elsewhere.

He had still checked on her throughout his absence whenever their bond allowed it, sometimes sensing only that deep, quiet slumber and the steady restoration taking place within her.

There had been something strangely comforting about knowing she remained there, sleeping safely inside the ridiculously beautiful little sanctuary he had built while he was being frozen, mauled, hunted, nearly pulverized by World Transcendents and generally enjoying the sort of vacation package Sienna apparently considered character development.

Then, almost coincidentally, Eira had awakened only hours after Phei finally returned home.

Coincidentally. Probably. Who cared?

Phei sat alone in one of the quieter lounges now, finally free from everyone demanding explanations, affection, introductions, gifts, kisses, family announcements and whatever else had somehow swallowed his return.

’I wonder, can it close realms. Okay that is a stupid question given how many times I tried to call Eira’s pocket in the Primordial Zone.’ But who was to say the Primordial Zone didn’t have its won restrict rules rather than just distance?

He stretched one arm along the couch, closed his eyes briefly and felt for the familiar hollow still anchored within his bedroom. The moment he found it, he curled one finger and the Void answered.

The pocket itself did not need to cross ordinary space like a physical room.

Its was detached from his bedroom and folded through the Void until a tiny distortion appeared several feet in front of the couch, so subtle that anyone ordinary could have walked directly through it without ever realizing another space existed there.

To Phei, however, its shape was unmistakable; it was a smooth dark fold resting beneath reality and waiting for him to open it. Nobody else could see or feel it unless they possessed some extremely unusual connection to the Void, extraordinary perception or were simply freakishly powerful enough that Phei’s hiding places stopped being particularly secret.

Say, for example, some ancient Monster currently watching him from somewhere beyond his awareness.